The Gita on Equilibrium

That hero, whose deepest essence stands unperturbed by transient circumstances -- accepting both suffering and pleasure with mental equilibrium -- alone is qualified for the immortality of real illumination.

Bhagavad Gita 2:15

Wii Yoga: Video Game & Yoga

An independent video game creator is developing a yoga program / video game that makes use of Nintendo's popular new "Wii Balance Board" (see photo), an accessory that attaches to its Wii game console and inputs the users weight and position into compatible games.  The publisher of the upcoming yoga game indicates that the concept will introduce young people to the techniques and philosophy of yoga in a fun, dynamic video environment.

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=192290

Meditation and yoga may deactivate stress genes

Researchers say they've taken a significant advance in the understanding of how relaxation techniques such as meditation, prayer and yoga improve health: by changing patterns of gene activity that affect how the body responds to stress.  They found that when the relaxation response is activated (by means of meditation), stress genes can at least temporarily reduce their activity.  The recent study is the first comprehensive investigation into the effect of mental states upon gene function.

Original article:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/02/AR2008070200973.html

The One Alone

You cannot know God by making yourself nothing.
Many a wise man claims that in order to know God one
must denude oneself of the signs of one's existence, efface
one's identity, finally rid oneself of one's self. This is error.
How could a thing that does not exist get rid of its
existence?

If you think that to know God depends on you ridding
yourself of yourself, then you are guilty of attributing partners
to God, the greatest error; because you are claiming
that there is another existence besides That, the all-existent;
that there is a you and a That.

Therefore, do not think anymore that you need to become
nothing, that you need to annihilate yourself in God. If you
thought so, then you would be God's veil, while a veil over God
is other than God. How could you be a veil that hides God?
What hides God is God's being the One Alone.

-- Ibn Arabi (13th cent. Sufi Master)

Authorship of Action

The authorship of action does not in reality belong to the ‘I’.  It is a mistake to understand that ‘I’ do this, ‘I’ experience this and ‘I’ know this.  All this is basically untrue.  The ‘I’ in its essential nature, is uncreated; it belongs to the field of the Absolute; whereas action, its fruits and the relationship between the doer and his action, belong to the relative field, to the field of the three gunas.  Therefore all action is performed by the three gunas born of Nature.  The attribution of authorship to the ‘I’ is only due to ignorance of the real nature of the ‘I’ and of action.

-- Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, On the Bhagavad Gita

Gaining transcendent awareness

The first step is to bring the mind to the Transcendent. Through transcendent meditation, the attention is brought from gross experience to subtler fields of experience until the subtlest experience is transcended and the state of transcendental consciousness is gained. The march of the mind in this direction is so simple as to be automatic; as it enters into experience of a subtler nature, the mind feels increased charm because it is proceeding towards absolute bliss. Once the mind reaches transcendent consciousness, it no longer remains a conscious mind; it gains the status of absolute Being.

-- Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, On The Bhagavad Gita

Rejection and Acceptance

To reject the unreal is ordinary wisdom, but to be open to accepting what is truly real requires more than ordinary wisdom.

-- Anon.

Shams-i Tabriz I

One can postpone the obligatory ritual prayer but one cannot postpone the company of the dervish.

-- Shams-i Tabriz (1184-1248), Persian Sufi mystic and master of Rumi

Philokalia I

The limit or the acme of faith is purely immersion of one's mind in God.

-- Diadochus of Photiki (5th cent.), On Spiritual Knowledge and Discrimination

Renunciation of the Saints

To be a saint means to renounce not only everything earthly but also everything divine.

-- Nikos Kazantzakis, from God's Pauper: St. Francis of Assisi